The mix can make or break the presentation of a song. A great song with a bad production and mix, will have a tough challenge making it. But it is not really that hard to create a great sounding mix once you know a few guidelines. Here follows how I prepare for my Pop/R&B mixes.

The first thing I do after I finished my production and recording, is to bounce all my midi instruments into audio files, all starting from bar 1. It is not only just to free resources to use for plugins, but also to prepare my mindset for the mixing phase. Bouncing the files also assures me that my sessions will always sound the same whenever I open it - even years later after having changed or upgraded some of my instruments.

I like to keep my tracks in same order from song to song

. I always start from left with kick drums, snare, clap, hihats, percussion and cymbals and FX. Then it’s bass, guitars, percussive synths, pianos and last pads and strings. The vocals I put on the right side starting with lead, dubs, addlibs and finally bv’s. After all the audio tracks I have my groups, FX returns and last the master fader.

First step is to break the mix down into sections eg. drums, bass, guitars, keys and vocals. Focusing on just a part of the picture gives clarity instead of confusion.

I like to create the following 7 groups for my Pop/R&B mixes: Main Drums, Cymbals & SFX, Bass, Percussive Synths & Keys, Strings and Pads, Lead vocals & addlibs, BV’s.

I also set up a few fx channels, 3 different reverbs, 2-3 different delay/echos, chorus and other modulation. If I need more during mixing I can always add them later.

Once you have your session set up the like this, a good tip is to save the session as a template. Then you don’t have to go through this process every time, but can simply open the template and add all the audio files you bounced.

Look out for my next article where I talk about mixing the drums.

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Technorati Tags: Mixing, Music production, Templates

To finish my little introduction to vocal production, I will today give you a couple of tips.

1. Here is a cool little tip on how to add monitor reverb when recording vocals. Since we blend the music coming from the computer directly with the voice in the interface, the vocal will sound dry in the headphones. Some singers prefer to monitor with reverb added to their voice while singing. Here is how you can do that. Normally you mute the recording voice in the audio recording program, because we are alreay monitoring direct from the interface to avoid latency. If we instead unmute the recording voice but turn the fader all the way down, we can add a send in PRE fader mode to a reverb plugin. The reverb will be present but not the dry sound. Since reverb typically has a predelay anyway is does not matter that we will hear the reverb with a small latency from going through the converters and plugins.

2. Adding special effects. It can be cool to add a speaker effect to the vocals in certain parts of the song, like the bridge or in a tag after the chorus. If you insert a guitar amp simulater plugin on the vocal track you will get that effect. Only problem is that it might be too much effect. To give me more control, I copy the vocal onto two seperate tracks and just place the guitar amp plugin into one of them. Then I can blend as much or little I want of the effect into the vocal. You can do the same trick with a compressor set to compress heavy. By adding a bit of that compressed vocal with the uncompressed vocal you can get a very cool sound. You should be aware that not all audio programs compensate for the latency the plugin adds. If that’s the case you will have to compensate manually.

3. Delay in certain parts. Often in songs you will hear a long panning delay in spaces between the vocal, typical in the end of the chorus or verse. You can automate a send to the delay to get it sounding only in these certain places. But it can be differcult to get it precise, so instead of automation, I simply move the vocal parts that need the delay onto another track that sends to the delay. Just remember to also copy any EQ and compression you are using.

That’s it for the introduction to vocal recording. Next time I will start my introduction to mixing, my favorite part of music production.

See you soon…

Technorati Tags: audio, Delay, Effect, Monitoring, Record producer, vocal recording

Great, you got your interface and mic and are ready to record your vocals. First you need to install the interface drivers and connect your interface with your computer using a usb cable. Also connect an XLR cable from the mic to the XLR input on the interface, a pair of headphones and you are ready to go. You can mix the balance of the music with your voice on the frontpanel. Most newer interfaces have a direct monitoring system, so you can record without having to hear your voice in your headphones with a delay.

On the frontpanel, you will find the level control for your mic input. You need to set it, so it does not clip the input when you sing the loudest. A good tip to find the sweet spot, is shouting into the mic, while adjusting the level higher and higher, until the red light indicates cliping. When just turn the knob a tad back and you are all set.

Enable a new track in your recording software and hit record. Adjust the level of the music to your voice and find a nice blend. Remember that the blend is just for monitoring the sound. You can change the blend later in the mix.

Once you have a good lead vocal down, it’s time for overdubs and backing vocals. Just keep adding tracks for as many dubs you need. I usually make from 4 to 30 voices depending on the style of song.

One thing you will notice when listening back, is that the vocal level is a bit uneven compared to a commercial record. It might even sometimes be hard to hear the lyrics and other times the vocal is too loud compared with the music. That’s where a compressor comes in handy. A compressor will even out the dynamics in the voice, so it will fit better with the music. Most recording software comes with a bundle of plugins, among them one or more compressors. Just add a compressor plugin to your vocal tracks and set it up so it respond great to the vocal. I like to have an attack of about 20-30 ms and a release of about 100 ms. I set the compression ratio to 3 to 1 and the treshold, so the average gain reduction is around 5 db.

Next thing would be to EQ your vocal. It is hard to give a preset setting because of the variance between microphones and voices, but almost every time you would want to filter out the very low end. I usually set a lowcut filter at 100 Hz to get rid of the low rumble. If the voice sounds a bit dull compared to other recordings, I would boost the 1.5 KHz area 1-2 db as well as adding a bit of air in the sound by boosting 12 KHz a couple of db. If your vocal sound a bit thin, you can boost the area around 200-500 Hz. In that case you might have to set the lowcut filter a bit higher around 150Hz.

All for this time. There is still so much more to cover regarding vocal recording, so check back soon.   

Technorati Tags: audio, Record producer, vocal recording

Part 1…

Okay, so you created a great track. Wrote a killer melody and lyrics, so now you want to record some vocals to create your masterpiece.

Well, nothing beats a great singer. If you know someone who can really rock your song, it is worth almost anything to persuade him/her to sing it for you. A great singer recorded with a laptop mic beats a bad singer recorded in a world class studio any day.

Once you have found your singer, you need a little bit of gear to get a great sound out of you talent. In reality any microphone will do the trick, but there is quite a difference between a built-in laptop mic and a vintage neumann tube microphone going through a first-class preamp.

But you can get world-class results with far less than a 10,000 dollars microphone.

If I were to built a nice little starter setup today, here is what I would get:

1 – USB soundcard with buit-in preamp like the 130 dollars M-audio MobilPre USB Interface with Preamp. Reviews here..

2 – The 100 dollars Condencer Microphone Audio-Technica AT2020. Reviews here..

3 – Your favorite free audio software like Cubase LE or Garageband

So about 230 dollars will buy you enough hardware to get you started recording world-class vocals assuming you already have a computer.

Next time I will show you how to setup your software to get a great sound.

Technorati Tags: audio interface, Audio Recording, budget microphone, vocal recording

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